Doctor Who: The Time Destroyer
By Paul D'Arcy
Based on the Original Role Playing Game Developed By Ryan Blake
Episode 3
'Surely it's obvious, isn't it? The Daleks penetrated Gallifrey, and in the ensuing battle they and the Time Lords wiped each other out. But that's not the immediate question on your mind, is it Doctor?'
'That's true enough,' he replied.
'Then, ask it, Doctor. Ask the most burning question in your heart.'
He frowned and glanced around. It seemed as if the voice came from every direction.
'Who are you, and what do you want?'
'That's more than one question,' replied the voice with gleeful malice.
'I have more than one heart! The Doctor answered.
A quiet, malevolent cackle echoed throughout the antechamber.
'Touché' Doctor! I am the most intelligent member of your species. I am the leader of your people, and I will control you, to gain what I want.'
Something invaded the Doctor's mind in that instant. A dark presence, striking with so much anger, that he was forced to his knees.
Then, he felt pain.
Only pain.
The fourth Doctor had found a cave carved into the cliffs near the tower. Fortunately, he'd been lucky enough to get this far without incident. He'd heard some strange noises from the forest, but he hadn't run into anybody.
At least, nobody dangerous.
As he continued through the dark caverns, guided only by his own instincts, and the dim light of a flaming torch that he'd found by the entrance to the cave, his mind had conjured up images from his memory. Adric, Tegan, and Nyssa. A smile crossed his lips as another face appeared in his mind's eye.
The Brigadier would've hated this, he thought as he stepped around a small boulder and carried on moving through the cavern. The cave was dank, dark and claustrophobic.
His shadow looked extremely creepy as he continued down the passageway. He ducked past jutting stalagmites, struggled over the rough terrain and past a large pool of water. Then he heard a loud guttural roar from further on down the passageway.
What in N-space could that possibly be?
The roar echoed throughout the cavern. It sounded eerily familiar. Then, he caught the merest glimpse of something large and hairy.
Of course! A yeti!
He turned to run back the way he'd came, but stopped as a Raston warrior robot flashed into existence at the other end of the cavern.
Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place!
The tremendous roar from behind told him that the behemoth was lunging towards him. The Raston warrior robot aimed an arm at him.
And fired.
The Doctor dropped down onto one knee. Less than an inch above his curly hair, one of the warrior robot's arrow zoomed by and struck the Yeti right above its chest. The hairy robot jerked violently as electrical currents criss-crossed over its bulky frame.
It fell backward and crashed onto the stone floor.
A second later, a silver ball burst out from the incapacitated Yeti's chest cavity, springing upwards into the air. The rapid movement must've set off the Raston warrior robot's sensors, because in the next instant it fired one, two, three arrows at the small globe.
It evaded them with ease, and then retreated back where the Yeti had come from.
As if it were being called home, the Doctor reflected.
More silver arrows streaked towards the globe as it disappeared down the adjacent corridor from which it came.
The Raston warrior robot jumped, leaving the fourth Doctor alone in the cavern. Urgently, he rose and shoved himself back against the wall just as the Raston warrior robot emerged from its lightening jump.
Did it see me? Was I fast enough?
Its back was facing the Doctor, which led him to believe that he'd been lucky. He breathed out slowly with relief.
But the Raston warrior robot had detected the movement, swiftly turning around, one hundred and eighty degrees, to face him. The Doctor held his breath, mindful that the robots' ultra-sensitive scanners could pick up the small movement of his chest as he exhaled.
He couldn't see the thing, but he heard the purring noise of its jump. Desperately, he breathed out and searched for his sonic screwdriver. He pulled it out, just as the robot reappeared two feet away. It twitched one way, then another, searching the cavern with its sensors.
The Doctor flicked on the screwdriver and it immediately emitted a hypersonic signal.
Just as the robot swivelled around to face him.
The hypersonic signal grew higher in pitch as he watched the battle droid crouch, raise its left arm and snap it back until it fired a deadly bolt right at him.
The arrow struck the rock centimetres above the Doctor's head. It cracked a hole into the rock and bounced to the floor. The hypersonic signal was starting to have an effect on the cavern's ceiling.
It vibrated violently as dust dropped in lazy swirls onto the floor. The Raston warrior robot moved its strange metal faceplate back and forth methodically, as if searching for something.
The one spot where it'll cause the most damage, obviously, the Doctor thought.
The ceiling was rattling more violently, now. Suddenly, great chunks of rock rained down on the battle droid. They struck its silver head, knocking it off balance. Another heavy boulder struck its shoulder, forcing it down onto its knees.
As it sank down, another huge rock smacked it on top of its 'head.' Then another, and another. The android's faceplate was wrenched off the cranial unit as more rock smashed down upon it. A dust cloud covered the area, completely enveloping the robot. The Doctor leaned back against the rocky wall and sank down it to rest at the bottom. The threat was over.
At least I can make my way to the tower in peace, he hoped.
He rose and took a step forward just as the boulder on top of the robot started to move. Despite his crimson overcoat and extra-long scarf, he felt a chill of sheer terror run down his spine.
The boulder fell to one side, and the warrior robot slowly struggled to its feet. Even though the thing had its back to him, the Doctor could tell that it had sustained heavy damage in the rock fall. Its robotic frame teetered unsteadily as it stood, its back to him.
He was certain he could hear the fizzing of broken circuitry coming from its body. The machine seemed to have no control over its right arm from the elbow joint down. The appendage hung loosely. It still moved its head, but it was much slower than before, still searching for its nearest target.
Slowly, it turned to look over its shoulder, almost as if it were staring directly at him, and the Doctor got his first glance at its inner cranial circuitry. It was a mass of polyduranium circuit housings with small, semi-globular senceivers positioned in a North-South-East-West configuration.
Each one, capable of sighting any kind of movement at a considerable distance. When combined, the senceivers would feed the target data to its weapons.
That explains why these things are so accurate. But how did it miss me earlier?
Surely, the hypersonics projected by his screwdriver couldn't interfere with such a deadly array of scanners?
Staring at its face he realised that two of them had been knocked out of alignment, whether from the rock slide or from an earlier attack, he couldn't tell.
So, that was it, realised the Doctor.
Smoke was beginning to rise from its body. Evidently, it had been badly damaged.
It tried to step forward lost its balance and collapsed onto the side of a large boulder. Gravity took over and the droid fell awkwardly into a nearby pool of water.
There was a tremendous flash as bright blue arcs of electricity criss-crossed the robot's body. The electricity seemed almost alive, spectacularly lighting up the entire cavern. The Doctor brought his hand up to his eyes and squinted as the energy field spattered across the water and finally died out.
Smoke rose into the air, and the Doctor could smell the acrid stench of burning circuitry.
It's done for, that's for certain, he thought.
He backed away from the body and the rubble and, glad that he was still alive, stumbled down the passageway.
The corridor was creepy, with flaming torches every few feet down the hall. The Doctor brought the edges of his cloak closer to his chest as he recalled the last time he was inside Rassilon's tower.
'I feel as if something absolutely terrible were going to happen,' Sarah Jane cowered.
'Sit down, here. Rest for a moment,' he'd replied, and turned to leave.
'But where are you going?'
'I won't be a moment.'
He turned and walked further down the dark corridor.
'Well, don't be too long!'
Her reply had been desperately fearful. He recalled how the mind of Rassilon had tried to fool him with illusions of Mike Yates and Liz Shaw. They'd seemed very blank, unemotional.
But there was nothing here. No illusions, no phantoms appearing as old friends. Not even the sense that something was trying to attack his consciousness.
Nothing.
The old ghosts were gone. That was something, at least.
A few steps further on, and he came to a large room, and horror filled his hearts.
'Great balls of fire!' he murmured.
The room was littered with dead Cybermen. He knelt besides the nearest one, and carefully studied the blackened mark on its shoulder and chest.
'Hmm. You weren't shot by any conventional weapon were you, my dear chap?'
Certainly not like the weapons the Cybermen usually carried, or the Daleks, for that matter. A high intensity beam of great power must have overloaded their circuitry and destroyed them all.
No…
No, there was one body in the centre of the room covered with the blast patterns that could only come from a Cyber disruptor. If he was the last one to die, then someone might still be around, killing off the last of the species in the Death Zone.
That thought filled the Doctor with a cold chill.
Could someone else have discovered the secret of Rassilon's tomb? Was someone trying to enter the tomb at this very moment? He'd seen the results of looking for Rassilon's final secret. Immortalised forever, in stone.
Not a pleasant prospect, he thought.
But the idea of someone trying to reach the tomb produced an even worse thought.
Rather than pursue the immortality that the greatest Time Lord who'd ever lived had possessed, what if someone had discovered a method of using Rassilon's own power to his, or her advantage?
'Questions. All I've got is questions, and damned few answers.'
To find dead Cybermen was strange in itself, but there was something else. The bodies were lying across some tiles on the floor. Ten rows long by ten rows deep, and using alternate red and grey tiles. The whole thing looked like a giant chessboard.
As if someone had decided to play using the Cybermen as pieces.
'Pawns.' The Doctor growled into the darkness.
Then he noticed something else. A small coin had been tossed onto the second row of the board, just beyond the nearest Cyberman's remains. It had landed on a red square. Another was on the red square just in front.
He couldn't see the fourth row because a silver arm covered it, but he could just make out a third coin, on the fifth row of the board.
Diabolical ingenuity!
The words crossed his mind like a forgotten dream. It wasn't something he'd thought to himself, exactly. It didn't feel like he'd thought it, anyway.
Still, it was his thought.
Shaking it away, he examined the board. He half-remembered seeing something like this a long, long time ago. He couldn't remember where, but he'd definitely seen this, or something similar, before.
It was obviously some sort of trap. The Cybermen had sprung it, and they'd died. But this thing worked on a certain mathematical application. But what was the basis for it?
Try it, Doctor. It's as easy as pie.
That was definitely not his thoughts, neither a memory fragment. Someone had spoken those words to him, but he couldn't remember who or when.
'If it's so easy why bother creating the thing in the first place?' he muttered underneath his breath.
Good grief, why remember it at all? What use could it possibly do him? Unless…
He grinned.
'Of course! Pi indeed!'
He had a fleeting image of a dying Cyberman on its knees, bursting into flames as he moved to the right corner of the board and carefully stepped onto the first row, a red square. His mind clicked over the calculations with impressive speed, using Pi as the basis to solve the death trap.
He stepped over the second row completely, and placed his left foot onto a grey square on the third row. Shifting his weight onto that leg, he swivelled around to step onto a red square on the fourth row to his left. The only problem was that, now, he was facing the wrong way.
He shifted his weight again, leaning on his right foot, and pivoted three hundred and sixty degrees and stomped down on the grey square two rows in and to his right.
He was now almost in the centre of the board, standing awkwardly, with a dead Cyberman lying on the floor between his feet.
At least the Scarecrow couldn't see him standing like this. He'd never hear the end of it if his former self was watching now.
Still, he'd made it halfway, despite his ridiculous stance.
The Doctor tensed, waiting for the board to erupt with the deadly bolts of energy that would confirm his failure.
If I'm wrong…
Ignoring the trickle of sweat running down his temple, he glanced up at the ceiling. He couldn't see much beyond the stark bright light that gleamed down upon him. He felt both of his heartbeats in his ears.
Bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump.
It was so deafening, and yet so quiet.
Then he heard a sound that made his blood run cold as ice.
'Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.'
The laugh was unmistakable. It held a calculated intelligence that seemed to invade the Doctor's very soul, like some kind of stark, incurable disease. He knew it could only come from one person. The most evil person he'd ever met.
'Jehoshaphat! What are you doing here?'
Out of the shadows stepped a man dressed entirely in black. A moustache stretched over his upper lip and reached down to his chin, accentuating the widow's peak of a beard. His eyes were cool blue, clear and calculating.
In every way, the Master exuded evil.
'Fancy footwork, Doctor. You should've been a ballet dancer. Not the most dignified position, though.'
'Never mind that. Are you responsible for bringing me here?'
'You mean, you and your other selves?'
The Master's face was full of dark pleasure.
'Don't you know?'
The Doctor continued to frown at him.
'Can't you guess?'
The silence between them lengthened.
'I knew you were a fool, Doctor. But I had hoped you would've, at least, considered other possibilities, rather than jump at the obvious!'
'Don't be stupid! Of course, he wouldn't.'
The soft catlike voice came from beyond the Master. Somewhere behind him, in the darkness of the room.
As if on cue, the lights slowly grew brighter, revealing a man with a blackened, emaciated face. His green hood covered the rest of his head, and a similarly coloured flowing cloak covered his body. He was sitting on a large ornate, wooden throne.
'He's too much, the hero,' the newcomer mewed. There was hatred in that voice. Dark and malevolent. The kind that was fed by pure insanity until it ravaged all in its path, like the most virulent plague.
'Who are you?' the Doctor asked. 'What happened to the rest of my people?'
The Master turned and walked slowly back to stand beside the throne.
'Your people are my people, Doctor.'
The Doctor glanced once at the Master, then again at the decrepit man seated next to him.
'You're a Time Lord? I don't believe it!'
'You've met your other selves here. Is it so impossible to believe my other selves are here also?' The Master smiled at him, coolly.
The Doctor's frown turned into incredulity.
'You mean that-!'
'Yes, Doctor,' growled the gnarled incarnation of the Master. 'We are one,' he glanced at the man standing at his side. 'One and the same. It will be most gratifying to see you die. Gratifying beyond words.'
He gestured off to one side. Three blue-white lights appeared at head height. The source was unclear, hidden inside the darkness for a moment. Then three nightmarish Daleks moved out into the light.
'You-will-be-ex-ter-min-ated!'
The Doctor quickly glanced back towards where he'd entered the room as two Cybermen stalked into the chamber in perfect unison. They stopped just beyond the chessboard.
'You will be deleted, Doctor.'
He looked down at his own feet. The calculation involved to get across the rest of the board was irrelevant, now.
The withered Master's cackle was loudly ringing in the Doctor's ears as the Cybermen raised their arms, pointing their weapons straight at him, and fired.